disneyland

survived
disneyland... barely. but oh how i hate tourists who stand around looking disgusting and bewildered in elastic waist shorts (PS IT'S FRREEZING HERE) and fanny packs :| and always with the brand new reeboks - the dead giveaway if any is needed :)

found
the store i have been looking for all my mommy life: kitson kids. it's true - heaven is a place on earth :)

spent
far far far too long comparing mickey mouse cookie cutters... and ended up with the first one i saw

drove
home at the speed of light as Danny announced the second we got out of the car park that his butt needed to "bomit". we got home in 9 minutes and he then proceeded to play with his new argentinasaurus, Jinto :|

wrote
invites out. sigh, Martha suggests 3 weeks in advance.... 5 days in advance will just have to do :)

i made these with the kids today


but i actually ended up making them with his company as the kids got bored :|

watching the top ten dinosaurs is far more exciting than making cookie boxes and felt lollipops :|


even argentinasauruses need their butts washed :)

picture 444 in the candy store. i love that candy store :)

cotton candy stop

my pretend baby

monday things

going
to disneyland in an hour :| sigh. why does everyone else exclaim 'i'm going to disneyland!' like it's the happiest place on earth or something? it's full of the most annoying people from all over the world - and their screaming snotty children - all squeezed into a tiny sweaty space :|

making
an argentinosaurus there for a child who has talked about NOTHING else since i foolishly mentioned there was a build a dino at disneyland. sigh :|

listening
to Danny and Lily discuss how much they love 'mentals' (mentos:)

writing
letters to the boys from "Santa Claus" :) i write a much cooler letter than those send-away places for $9.95 :) and i pepper it with Santa beating himself up for not always being very nice to HIS siblings and making sure to mention he takes good care of HIS pets and room in order to get a decent gift from Mrs Claus :)

loving
radio flyer. we got our trike from them in 2002 (model 33 = perfect for pictures:) anyway it's old and it lives outdoors and it's kind of rusty but i like it that way for pictures :) after years of abuse, being ridden by adults and reckless children, it just broke. i called them to buy the replacement part because the trike is kind of like a member of our family. but no siree bob, they wouldn't sell me the part.... they would only GIVE it to me with free two day shipping :) now, that's classy!

off to disneyland (sign of the cross) i'm goin' in.......

why....

why...
when i say 'no thanks' to gross icky sweet tarts candy do my kids insist on practically pushing it into my mouth, yelling 'it's good! you'll love it!! just try it!!' maybe they are getting their own back for my years of plying them with kernels of corn and tiny broccoli trees? but really i don't like sweet tarts! i know i don't!

why...
is my child scared of multiplication apart from when it's multiplying 26 days by 24 hours to equal the hours till the gifts arrive :| (624)

why...
is it that the second we put up christmas lights and fanciful signs and such in the yard that the santa ana winds return with a vengeance? (ditto ghosts and goblins at halloween)

why...
does a week out of preschool equal Danny crying and hiding in a corner about going back :(

why...
is it so hard to decide between a readymade no-muss-no-fuss-costco sheet cake and this homemade rainbow layer cake which will be impossible to make and cause me to cry all friday evening and my fingers to be stained and gross at the party?

why...
do i start off every monday morning vowing ONLY to eat yogurt forever more and by 3pm i am binging on stacy's pita chips and endless bowls of trader joe's ginger cat cookies :(

back later - got to run to trader joe's and NOT buy ginger cat cookies i swear :|

sunday night things

went
to dog beach today where all the dogs were black. every single last one of them :) it was soooooo cool!!!

made
a christmas topiary out of a box of leftover mini-lights and a tomato cage (Martha Stewart i salute you!)

received
our first christmas card (always from the very same sweet friend in England:)

baked
an apple pie which will have to be dinner tonight since we didn't eat yet :)

got
my iphone 'MissSpell' score up to A :)

searched
high and low for a cotton candy rental for saturday... Danny loves cotton candy and we love Danny, therefore he needs cotton candy at his party :)

checked
dryday.com to see if it is going to rain on saturday (which it is NOT allowed to do - no way no how) it says it is going to be a transition day from grey on friday (possible rain) to dry on sunday... this is giving me majorindigestion, an itchy neck and a sensitive tummy with stress. hmm, i wonder if we can set up a bouncer in the garage...? rain at birthday parties should be illegal :|

no clue what day it is :|

didn't
do ANY black friday shopping whatsoever yesterday :) instead we stayed in bed for coffee, cash cab and cuddles

did
deck the whole house with lights and little villages. we made a lot of new ornaments this year :) it's a very good thing as Martha would say

babysat
my pretend kids last night so their mommy and daddy could go on a date to target:) that equals 4 children. we read the elf on the shelf and immediately put the elf to work (thanks Chris and Jodi, he is named Scranton and absolutely adorable and treasured by my boys!) my pretend little girl immediately dismissed him as "just an ornament" :| i was forced to move him while she wasn't watching to prove he is real and she is now totally intimidated by him and his magical powers :)

bought
Danny's party favors at US Toys. there is absolutely no theme apart from everything being totally COOL and fun! oh and we had to sample the pizza and garlic bread that will be catering the party. it's gooooooooooooood pizza :) better than the garlic bread - yes, for the first time ever, i found pizza that gazumps the garlic bread :)

printed
our holiday cards at kinko's. yes kinko's :| and i love them! i hated white house the last two times i got their cards so i took them to the copy shop and viola/walla/bingo bango bongo (as people who can't speak a word of french say) they are done!! and i don't have to stress over unstraight borders, cropped heads, midwestern snowstorms canceling all UPS pickups :|

it rained
for 32 seconds today :)

the card: some assembly required

at their favorite toy store (ok and mine too:)


my own personal pocket-sized disneyland :)




the sick bay - one sick puppy and one sick boy who are feeling better today (fingers crossed:)

it's official

i cannot live without my iphone :|

today i asked it (WITH MY VOICE - NO BUTTONS! JUST TALKED TO IT!!!) if target was open today (it's thanksgiving in the u. s. of a.) and it flashed up a message saying "not till tomorrow at 6am". oh my, now that is quite something!!!!!!!! last night i said 'fart' to it and gave me a whole wikipedia entry about farting and a link to books i could buy at amazon on farting (walter the farting dog was on the list ;) forget healthcare Obama - everyone needs an iphone :| there is even a period tracker app which i am too shy to download but i think sounds wonderful!

anyway here i am trying to play paparazzi, look for the lyrics AND use 'i am t-pain' to auto tune my wretched voice and it's all impossible without the use of the damned iphone. i need three iphones to do all these tasks simultaneously:)

and either i have wicked swine flu or i cannot sing to save my life ;)

or..... maybe just i am t-pain sucks???!

and who the hell IS t-pain anyway??!

off to make gingerbread men with one white glove for our trip to Neverland tomorrow :)

which reminds me........


i've told him a MILLION times it's 'no-one wants to be defeated, showing how funky strong it's your fight, it doesn't matter who's wrong or right' but does he listen??? no he does NOT :|

back soon xoxoxo

tune wiki and other loves

i l-o-o-o-v-e tune wiki. it has to be the most awesome thing ever since the invention of a phone i CAN actually use :)

i love the channukah song by adam sandler - though tune wiki doesn't have the words to it. but it doesn't really matter that much because i know the words by heart :)

i love the Kennedy's so much - they're awesome!! i actually watched today's entire oprah :| i didn't know Ted Kennedy's son only had one leg - you learn something everyday. anyway, i love them all - we named Friday after JFK jnr's dog and our grey rat Teddy after Edward Kennedy :) i am sure this honor means more to them than having airports and freeways named after them... right??! i love that the 11 year old grandson of Ted Kennedy said 'oh my god' on screen and no-one shot him the judgmental shriveled up stare. i officially love the Kennedy's forever for this reason alone :)

i love perfectly clean reflective floors and perfectly spotless windows :)

i love watching movies in bed

i love that target had tim tams today! i didn't buy them because it was day one of my diet and it seemed wrong. but i am sure by weekend they will be mine though :)

i love Brian Culbertson - for all the meanest most horribly wrong reasons:) Melissa, he's coming to New York City next week ;) and LA too - so we can both see him live again :)

i love Elvis Presley :)

and i love Britney Spears :)

i love that my christmas card is done. and it has 90 highlight of the year on it... yes NINETY highlights :) and it was hard to pick :)

i love bedtime :)

ramble

i am on the dietest of diets!
i am never eating ever again!!
and it's really really hard to stop eating when you are used to sneaking a bite of unwanted child's waffle unconsciously here and there (the waffle is unwanted - not the child :|)
and a handful of ginger cat cookies on the way out of the kitchen
anyway i had to spit the biteful of waffle out :|
which i need to look up... that isn't bulimnia... right?
it's only bulimnia if you swallow it and then barf... right?
(argh american spellcheck says it doesn't have a n but it does - i know it does!!)
anyway i could never be bulimnic
because i hate being sick
it comes out of my nose and eyes
that isn't normal, surely?
blowing your nose and getting a tissue full of stomach lining???
it's enough to make you sick all over again :|
anyway, no food for me!
yes i know it's the holidays... worst time to diet, etc
but jenny craig says people can lose 12 pounds during the holidays
which i absolutely don't believe for a second...
and i am not doing her plan anyway
it's my plan! no food! nil by mouth!!
back later with the scoop on what i managed NOT to eat today
xoxox

air freshener, farting dogs and bad words

i have been searching high and low for febreze ginger and nutmeg room freshener. even though the name febreze is very offputting - it should be FABreze, as in fabric/fabulous, not febreze as is febrile seizures, right? the thought of a product that you spritz in the air that causes febrile seizures surely does them a disservice? anyway i wouldn't be so curious about this FABreze product, if i didn't love jo malone nutmeg and ginger so very much... i am sure this FABreze stuff will suck when i finally do locate it as it's ginger and nutmeg NOT nutmeg and ginger :| but the wild goose chase continues for now through every cvs and walmart and walgreens and target i come across (and i must admit... it's kind of fun ;)

today i found it at drugstore.com. this store is my nemesis since they give you $10 off if you spend $50 or something like that. so can i spend just $12 on room freshener? nope i can not. so now i am trying to decide if i really need night vision goggles that will push the total to $59, thus earning me free shipping, $3 drugstore dollars AND $10 or whatever it is off. argh. am i sick? what would Dr Phil say about this? or worse still... Suze Orman???? i feel like one of those women who hides things in her car for fear of revealing her shopoholic ways to her husband. but at the end of the day, it's just an air freshener... and i wouldn't even hide the box (ok maybe i'd hide the night vision goggles since how would i explain those???? :)

today i read my children (pretend and real) Walter the Farting Dog which has to be the best book i have read in a very long time if not ever... (at least since Letters from Obedience School which is the cutest funniest book ever and i would read even if i didn't have to read to children:) anyway, "they" (people like that annoying smug Sears guy off the doctors) say you should read to your children (pretend or real) for 15 minutes per day. so i was feeling all proud of myself walking them to school (another good mother point!) as i had actually completed my parenting requirement for the day :) suddenly, my children started to yell 'hey, fart face!' at passing dogs on leashes. gasp! old ladies shook their heads in horror. i got the evil stare from people with no children, who should not be allowed to stare at people with children. "but it's from a book!! i just read them a book about a farting dog... they called him 'fart face'.... i'm a good mom honestly!!!" sigh. life as a parent here truly sucks ass, everyone is sooo uptight! you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. and yeah, i bet damned is a 'bad word' too. and 'ass' too. arghh...help me i am in hell!!! in england you can say 'oh my god' and 'god stewth' and 'damn it all to hell and back' and 'jesus christ' and no-one even whips around to judge you with their eyes. i miss england so very much ;)

i love it when:
i buy something silly and pointless like small paul birthday supplies for danny's party and i find a forgotten-about gift card tucked in my wallet that covers the total :)

i get a little concerned when:
the new neighbor has a sticker in his car saying he likes to hunt tourists :|

i hate:
folding fitted sheets with a passion

i have to:
stop biting my fingers till they bleed

and:
delete all those stale unwatched 'secret lives of women' - that show sounds so promising but it's just awful and lame

i love the smell of:
baby powder and pink baby lotion

and:
neutrogena shampoo

i baked:
bread from scratch today. it totally wasn't worth the hours of waiting and made me thankful for trader joe's parbaked french baguettes :|

i can't help but wonder if:
foam glue isn't just regular glue...

and:
if 'praying hard' works faster/better than just regular everyday praying :|

i am listening to:
MJ 'the way you make me feel'

and wishing that:
my computer wasn't so slow tonight - death by photoshop. going to bed ;)

it's the monday before black friday

and my head is spinning like a top :|

deals abound, and i cannot decide where i should be at 5am on friday morning!! waiting in line at walgreens for a $8 snuggie (in select styles... that part worries me as the ad shows an animal print snuggie:), or grabbing the rubbermaid easy find container set of my dreams at walmart or settling for a 32 inch tv at target because it's only $240... or enjoying a free breakfast at the south coast plaza ikea (can you imagine that zoo?!!)

truth be told... i don't need anything :| and the people who shop on black friday are truly terrifying - like elderly female boo radleys but without the vulnerable sweetness. they only come out once a year to shop. they are afraid of the light and are ghostly white and doused in powder. they don't know how to drive but insist on driving huge boats and go when they should stop and stop when they should go. they pay by check - always - and write in illegible cursive really really really slowly :| they spend $70 on colored pencils in individual 25c packs. argh - i have a tension headache just thinking about it :|

here is what i realllly want to do on friday. get up like it's black friday. grab some chocolate croissants and coffee at the cream pan. zoom at the speed of light through LA at 6am. stop briefly in santa barbara to play on the perfectly glassy beach. drive north past llama and ostrich farms. turn right. keep going as per my map. find the gates of neverland. turn up the stereo in the car and listen to MJ and share a few minutes of singing/dancing bliss with my kids. drive south via less crowded stores around 4pm, pick up same bargains as the 5am crazies and go home happy :)

back later xox

loves........

(and don't loves... naturally:)

i love Mr UPS - he is fast and friendly and i love the color brown :)
i don't love Mr Fed Ex - he is slow and serious and brings boring documents, not beaming boxes bearing gifts :(

i love shelter cats
i don't love fancy cats

i love walmart
i don't love target

i love my iphone :)
i don't have a don't love about it yet :)

i love crocs
i don't love flip flops

i love pet rats
i don't love pet snakes

i love the soup
i don't love the dish

i love martha stewart
i don't love donald trump

i love cheesecake factory
i don't love red robin

i love the beach
i don't love "the river" (wherever that is....)

i love trader joes
i don't love whole foods

i love a full tank of gas
i don't love warning lights

i love cash cab
i don't love deal or no deal

i love wearing perfume
i don't love wearing jewelry

i love mcdonalds
i don't love burger king

i love biblical names
i don't love 'cool' names like jagger and lennon

i love duncan hines
i don't love the pillsbury dough boy

i love french bread
i don't love sourdough bread

i love the house being empty
i don't love feeling like i should clean up while the house is empty - i'm going shopping instead :)

night things

it's ok, oprah can retire now. why? because Nate is getting his own show! horray!!!! there is a God (and her name is Oprah with a capital O :)

today i got an email from Barry Manilow. this man emails me ALL THE TIME with personal crap and it kind of bugs me.... today's email was all chipper-like and began "i'm alive!! i survived the surgery" :| well, since we are such good friends, you would think he would have mentioned the surgery in a previous email or on facebook or something????! he is such an oddball, that one... and he signed the email 'all best'... i hate 'best' but 'all best' is even worse :| all best... seriously

while we're on the subject of odd, how on earth are the most searched things on yahoo today:
1) victoria beckham
2) dave matthews band

either:
a) they died today (gawd, that would be just my luck - they will die just to make me look mean... that happens all the time)
b)............. i can't think of a b????!

i felt slightly homesick today. we stopped at the most sumptuous british store in the whole of the united states. they have e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g you can think of, including my favorite floor cleaning product ever that i would even fly home for, as i absolutely cannot and will not live without it. it smells like freshly cut flowers. anyway i bought like 10 bottles of disinfectant and a lot of crisps in various crazy flavors like tomato ketchup, roasted chicken, worcester sauce, steak and onion.... how can a country as great as america have such crappy crisps???! just to make the homesickness a little worse, i'm listening to kate bush which reminds me of home more than the beatles and blur and smiths all put together.... i must stop listening before i eat all those crisps to appease my homesick blues

with Santa today, the sock monkey needs ears, yes i know, it bothers me too :)

we made sugar cookie people :) the ladies had hershey kisses for breasts, naturally :)

we made ornaments. the ones i made have a check next to them :)


and i hung my nut thing on the door :) then had a panic attack that someone with a nut allergy would touch it and die on the doorstep, and took it down :(

a piece of the christmas card so far....

ohmygod

it's official - oprah is the meanest woman ON EARTH

she is ending her show - how dare she! she can't end her show - i haven't been on it yet, celebrating the release of my latest book, scolding her playfully for asking about what she said she wouldn't ask about in the green room, and grasping my hands together at the end of the show in faux humbleness as the audience delights at finding a free copy under their seat.

she CAN'T quit - i didn't write to her to have Disneyland rented out exclusively to Danny's preschool teacher, Mrs Kay, and all her former 22 years of students yet :(

or asked her if she wants to help fund the new auto mechanic school that i want to start for women, where they learn to work on cars, belonging to poor people who need them to get to work... she is letting SO MANY PEOPLE down :(

i honestly can't say i will miss her show - it had sucked for a long time and i really only read the title of the show and delete it. fridays are the worst - i have NEVER watched it on a friday. oh no... i just let out an audible sharp gasp: Nate Berkus :( when will i ever get to see him anymore???? how come that sleazeball Dr Oz gets a show but Nate doesn't???! i think Nate should take over.... i must write to oprah about it. oh my gosh - who am i going to write to anymore????!!! arrghhh!!!!!!!!!

wednesday/thursday things

baked cookies....

and ate them all :)


unabashedly bawled my eyes out watching these clips

the lucky green parrots came to visit again:)


proof that sometimes life is quieter with boys, especially at the car wash :)




became somewhat obsessed looking through 18 years of daily polaroids taken throughout this man's life (and death)

and took lots of random sweet pictures of sweet things